Ida Lewin (1906-1938)
AlwaysWinter, Poland

32.

In the city of machines,
the trolley track transforms
into a river. I follow it,
the dirge of humming rails
     more liquid-resonant
                    than any Vistula.
There’s meaning in metal,
although the books proclaim
that only stone can answer
to our exile          only glass
is vessel for the soul.
I do not weep beside
this Babylon, nor drown
the way my mother might
have done. I am the modern voice
and this my lamentation,
          a current borne
on electricity and steel